A return to the Chicago school? From the ‘subculture’ of taxi dancers to the contemporary lap dancer

Colosi, Rachela (2010) A return to the Chicago school? From the ‘subculture’ of taxi dancers to the contemporary lap dancer. Journal of Youth Studies, 13 (1). pp. 1-16. ISSN 1367-6261

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Abstract

There has been much debate about the study of British youth cultures, often involving the analysis and critique of two dominant theoretical frameworks: the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) ‘subcultural’ position and the ‘post-subcultural’ position. This paper, will engage in this debate by offering an alternative set of arguments, drawing attention to the early empirical contribution made by the Chicago school of sociology to the study of youth, and the inadvertent role some of their work played in developing the first model of ‘subculture’. To demonstrate this, the work of Cressey (1932), who explored the ‘social world’ of young female taxi-hall dancers, will be considered, and in highlighting its relevance to the study of contemporary youth cultures, his work will be discussed in relation to a recent ethnography of lap dancing in which a hierarchical occupational subculture of dancers has been identified. Both Cressey’s (1932) ‘social world’ of taxi dancers and the subculture of the contemporary lap dancers, share similar features that define the unique, enclosed worlds of which each respective group is part. By drawing on Cressey (1932) and this recent study of lap dancers, not only are mainstream notions of youth culture questioned, but it is suggested that modes of work, as well as leisure, may hold ‘cultural’ significance.

Item Type: Article
Keywords: youth culture, subculture, ethnography, lap dancing, taxi dancer, Social class, Social work, ref22, refdoi
Subjects: L Social studies > L321 Women's Studies
L Social studies > L300 Sociology
Divisions: College of Social Sciences > Faculty of Health & Social Sciences > School of Social & Political Sciences
Depositing User: Users 2782 not found.
Date Deposited: 17 Mar 2011 14:37
Last Modified: 16 May 2013 16:08
URI: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/3666

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